yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xoom General] ruinah:
nah, i do get it. What you say above though "an hour later you have a Xoom perfect .mp4" - I get the same with DVD Catalyst in 15 minutes. Really to each his own. If people want to mess with .cmd files and go through multiple steps with different pieces of software, great. I don't. I am sure there are major videophiles that will like what e.mote is doing. I just didn't think the approach was quite right there.
[Xoom General] gbenj:
Maybe I haven't done enough tweaking to my settings, but I've tried a couple of 720p .mkvs transcoded with the settings from here and earlier threads, but my audio keeps coming out out of sync.

Its fine early on, in the movie, but if i seek forward, it starts to get out of sync.

Am I missing something simple or is this just a function of me skipping around thats throwing it out of sync?

Note: The video looks fine, not stuttering at all, smooth and crisp, its just the audio thats off by a few seconds.

Thanks.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Hi gbenj, are you experiencing this issue with DVD Catalyst 4, or are you refering to Handbrake?
[Xoom General] gbenj:
Handbrake,

Have I got my threads mixed up?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Yup :)

This one mainly consists of dvdcat-related posts. I'd love to help you with your Handbrake questions, but I don't use it myself.

There are a couple of people that posted in here regarding Handbrake, but for specific settings, I would suggest to start here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=988857
[Xoom General] sleeplessninja:
Thanks

Thanks for the post going to test this out now!
[Xoom General] sgtcasey:
Great app so far. Just bought the full version and ripping away. :-)

Dave
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thank you Dave :)

Let me know if you have any questions.
[Xoom General] droidrev71:
works great

i purchased this yesterday and have burned 5 movies so far. no problems and the picture of the movie on xoom and dx are very good.. thanks for the program!
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thank you droidrev :)

I just updated to 4.0.2.7.

There was an issue with volume on the Xoom profiles, which is fixed in the update, and, I tweaked the IVTC a bit. It was already enabled, but for DVD's I tweaked it a bit, and as a bonus, it seems to convert slightly faster from DVDs now.

To update your existing install, just click on the cat-eyes in the program.
[Xoom General] itsamac:
When I had a mac, I used to use Mac The Ripper to rip the DVD to disc. The current version is v 2.6.6 (which it has been for a while) but worked pretty much every time. Once the VOBs have been extracted, use Handbrake to convert it to the format you want.
[Xoom General] phrueben:
Too Picky

Is it me or there are a whole bunch of really impossible to please people on this threat?

I downloaded the trial version and it works just fine, I converted A Bugs life for my daughter it plays so nice on my Xoom.

I haven't been able to remove the black bar but who cares,,,everyone that I have shown the movie on my xoom is just amazed!

Thanks Geoff:)
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
remove black bars from xoom

Thanks phrueben,

for black bar removal, enable "power user", then in Global Settings > Borders, select "remove from device", and our movies will be full-screen (the small black border at the bottom is permanent unfortunately, but the resolution set in the Xoom profiles compensate for that.)
[Xoom General] MitchRapp:
got a name for the apps you're using and links?

I don't really want to watch a video of "how-to" ... just download links please :)
[Xoom General] ClydeB1:
DVD Catalyst
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
thank you ClydeB1. I don't think the mods would be too happy if I would post links.
[Xoom General] ClydeB1:
No, I guess not ;)

Thanks to you too for a good app. I've just bought the retail version (even @ ZAR7 to $1 ;)). I initially thought, hey why pay for an app if there is an alternative free solution that works just as well. Handbrake has worked well for me in comparative tests, but the difference in picture quality when converting a full bluray 1080p mkv rip of Avatar convinced me to spring for the $10. Using the standard Xoom presets on both, the quality of the two rips (DVD Catalyst vs Handbrake) were very very different, with the Handbrake one coming out very pixelated and I could not notice any difference in quality via playback on my pc monitor (22 inch) with the DVD Catalyst rip to the naked eye.

It could be that I'm just not technical enough to get the right settings in Handbrake (and it most probably is just that, so I'm not knocking Handbrake at all), but I'm all for getting the job done in the easiest manner. Drag the movie in, select the relevant preset and let it go.

Well done, and thanks for a great app.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thank you :)

For HD content (such as your Avatar rip), I would recommend using the HQ profiles though. The standard profile is better suited for DVD content. The HQ profiles have a higher video bitrate, which makes the video look better, especially during faster scenes.
[Xoom General] ClydeB1:
Thanks, I did use one of the HQ profiles ;) and the file size dropped from about 20 gig to 3.5gb and as I said earlier without any noticeable drop in visual quality. I used the word "standard" earlier but rather meaning "pre-loaded" profiles and not necessarily a base profile. I could just select a pre-defined profile without me having to fiddle with any settings. With never really having played with video settings and bitrates etc before, the ease of use is a win. Perhaps with time and as I get more practice I may be able to replicate this quality with another tool.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Ah ok, for me, the standard profiles always refer to the ones without anything added to the name, which would be the "xoom" profile rather than "xoom hq"
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
How would you guys rate this compared to using Handbrake and using that xoom720 file that was floating around a few weeks ago.

I used that for Tron, but it was over 2.5 GB's.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Eventhough I tried most of the HB profiles floating around myself, as the dev of dvdcat, my opinions will be viewed as biased.

However, there are quite a few threads on xoomforums dot com, as well as androidforums dot com ("How are you watching movies?" in particular) where people share their experiences.

For my own, the last couple of weeks I've been working more and more with bluray (in combination with AnyDVD HD, which is not required if you do DVDs or MKVs and such) and the people who have been using the public beta for that, including me, have been very happy with the results.

edit:

using the Xoom HQ1 profile, Tron Legacy 720p turned out at 2.1GB in size:
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
Thanks for the quick reply.. Yea Tron 720p turned out a little bigger for me, but looks great. I'm about to try another with your program (that I just bought btw) and see how it goes.

So only use the 1080 setting if you're outputting to TV, how large are those files?

I did Tron in 720p and it was around 3GB, but from Xoom to my TV looks great.. I'm encoding it again right now with DVD Cat

oh and I had a few questions.

Can I choose the amount of CPU's used, like 3 instead of all 4, or priority so I can still use PC. it's taking most of my quad core right now.

and is there a forced subtitle only option? cuz things like Avatar need the forced subtitle option, cuz if you check none, you wont get the forced from when the Nabi people talk.

and after reading your site I saw you mentioned the bar at bottom from honeycomb, have you got around that yet?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thanks.

Yeah, the 1080 profiles are only useful for output to TV AND if your sources are 1080. The filesize of course depends on the profile, but expect those to be in the 3-4GB range.

I personally don't have much use for 1080 (I did try a few trailers) and rather have some choice on my Xoom:

edit: the girly flicks are for the wife, she steals the xoom every now and then :(
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Replied before you editted your post.

Forced subs is on by default. The setting is located in (enable power user) Global Settings > Language

In Global Settings > Conversion is a priority selection, which you can use to make your PC more usable. It runs at normal priority by default which should reduce the load (and thus the speed) a bit.

The Honeycomb menu-bar is unfortunately still permanent. Even in games, this bar remains, so I don't think this will ever be removed. However, the Xoom profiles in dvdcat use a custom resolution set to the screen size that is actually available for video playback, so if you choose to do so (Global Settings > Borders > Completely remove) you can make all your movies fill the video area completely with the menu-bar being the only black border.
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
Cool, Thanks for the replies.. I just encoded Road Trip using DVDCat and I chose the HQ1 and lowered bitrate to 1900, or would it be better to choose the regular Xoom option and raise it.

You're audio is louder than Handbrake that is for sure. I do have an issue though.

Just did Road Trip, took about 20 minutes on my 4.0 Ghz Quad Core with 4GB of ram and it went great, but ya know those cigarette burn looking flicks you see in the movies. I have those every 4-6 seconds. and this was from a DVD. idea's?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
For DVDs, the standard Xoom profile would be plenty. It is actually using settings I consider HQ for most other Android phones, because of the lower screensize. Anything over 1500Kbps for dvd-sized content is bordering on overkill.

For volume, I use a technique I call volume maximizer. It works sort of like normalizing music files so they all have the same volume, but it boosts the volume at the same time. This results in all your conversions, regardless of if you use DVDs, avis or mkvs to all end up with the same volume.

The cig-burn is something new to me, are you talking about this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
sort of like that que mark you'd see while at the movies, but little specs of black, or white that would flash on the screen. in random spots.

There was lots n lots of them, that aren't on my Avatar (with DVDFab) or from either transformers done with handbrake, nor with my latest settings for 720 for the xoom for Tron. with handbrake.

It is really odd. I should try to pause it on one, I doubt it would happen though. They are little marks that are no good. I'm currently running Inception from the DVD ISO I ripped a few nights ago using the stock Xoom setting. Will report back. I'm planning on writing a review about a few good programs for my blog that is why I'm trying multiple.
[Xoom General] Isun:
This keeps confusing me. The Xoom can only output 720P through the HDMI cable so even if you had a 1080P video and a 1080P TV it will display 720P as it's source. I keep seeing people say that they have 1080P on the Xoom and they output full HD to their TV but that is not possible.
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
I think you might be right.. 720p output. I'm not sure.

I do know I did a 720p output of Tron Legacy to my TV and it looked incredible :)
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
and to DVD Cat I was able to pause and screenshot what I am talking about, I've never seen it before. Road trip is an old movie but I didn't think that would matter.

I have a screenshot I'll attach showing what happened on that conversion. I copied from road trip DVD right to my xoom with HQ setting slightly lowered, like 1800 bitrate. and I'm getting the same dot in the picture in white and black, randomly on whatever parts of the screen. Maybe it was just a bad encode.. I don't know. trying inception right now.

See the picture. They are in black, and white and will just flash randomly very quickly... but happens way to much. Really odd
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
The specs are likely the DVD. I did a google for it, and found this review:

http://www.currentfilm.com/dvdreviews2/roadtripunrateddvd.html
[Xoom General] Isun:
Yeah, 720P does still looks great. I use Handbrake for my EVO but ran into issues when converting for Xoom. I use DVD Cat and it's pretty straight forward. I tested quality levels with bitrates at 3500Kbps all the way to 9500Kbps. You don't really see too much of a difference on the Xoom screen once you pass 4000Kbps. I can see a difference on my laptop's monitor but barely see any difference between them on the Xoom screen. DVD Cat is great and even lets you adjust contrast and brightness.I wish there was a way to increase saturation.
[Xoom General] xguntherc:
didn't wanna knock ur work or anything. So far it's amazing and works great as far as encoding. and your audio is truly great. I like that.

Inception is done, looks great and you are CORRECT. It was the movie causing it. I have zero issues with Inception.

Excellent. Works great. Thanks
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Oh, I know. The screenshot had me thinking it might have been a quality issue, but google helped. I can understand such issues with old 80's movies that are vhs transfers or something like that, but for a movie from 2000, its a bit unusual.

I have an article on my website about the audio technique I use. I'll pm you the link.
[Xoom General] wangwangzi:
ths a lot.
[Xoom General] RMXO:
Thanks a bunch. I'm using this to convert my MKVs to MP4s.
[Xoom General] ghodzilla5150:
As an owner of DVDCatalysts 4 I can say that it's an amazing program. I have been using the Blu-Ray Beta program (along with ANYDVD HD) and the Blu-Ray's I have re-encoded (Toy Story 3, Avatar, Percy Jackson, Cars, Monsters Inc, & Kung Fu Panda) All Look & Play Fantastically. I use Xoom HQ 1 Profile. It normally takes 90 minutes to make an MPEG4. Avatar is the biggest file @ 2.2gb. Awesome program
[Xoom General] fsunoles157:
You can also download them straiht to your xoom using ttorrent.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
For me the largest one ended up being "The Aviator" at 2.7GB in size. I haven't managed to actually watch it on the Xoom yet though. The colors on this movie sure looks good on the Xoom screen though.

I'll have a look and see if I can come up with something for the saturation.
[Xoom General] bossjeeves:
I have to say, It is really cool that you come on here and answer questions like you are doing, I honestly dont pay for many applications ( do trials and then onto the next ) but doing this actually makes me think I just might buy this app, looks like you did a great job with it.

ps, i cant wait to use this on my "fancy i7" super computer and rip dvds in 20 min :D
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Thank you Boss :)

It is easier for many people who use my software. I started doing this when I ran into a few questions on forums regarding dvdcat, and since they remained unanswered, I figured I'd register and answer them.

Besides that, it is a great way for me to learn about things I need to improve upon, something I would otherwise never find out.
[Xoom General] ghodzilla5150:
DVDCatalysts is a cool dude. He's on the Android Forums (Xoom) answering questions all the time (he has helped me on an issue with DreamWorks Blu-Ray's). He's a very good Dev. I bought the program when it was on sale for $10 and it's the best $10 I have ever spent on a Program. Great customer support. He works his butt off to help customers.
[Xoom General] Isun:
That would be awesome. Thanks!
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
I should be able to do something with it in the update I am working on. I'll also try and implement the hue, so I should have it all covered then, right?
[Xoom General] Isun:
It's pretty sweet as it is so if you do add a color adjustment tool it would just be more icing on the cake.
[Xoom General] bossjeeves:
just purchased it, thanks again, cant wait to rip my first one!
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
saturation + hue adjustment will be in the next update. I just finished the code for it. I also made it more accurate. Originally I used sliders in the preview and a stepping of 5 for the brightness/contrast adjustment. these will be replaced by number-pickers with a stepping of 1, which makes it a lot easier to fine-tune the look.

I have no idea for a release date for the update just yet. I'm working on finalizing the beta.
[Xoom General] ClydeB1:
Awesome thanks m8, now if only you could do something like that for the Xoom itself so we could adjust these natively on the device........
[Xoom General] ericman77:
I tried to convert a blue ray but found out catalyst doesn't convert blue ray. So I just used DVD Fab to copy the blue ray to a folder then converted the copy to MP4 with catalyst startrek looks awesome on the xoom.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Have a look on my website in the latest news section regarding the bluray beta. While it does require something like ANyDVD HD to handle the bluray protection (not needed for DVDs), there are quite a few people who love the bluray functionality in the beta.
[Xoom General] ericman77:
thanks ill check it out:-)
[Xoom General] jland22:
volume problem

Hello apologies if this is already mentioned but this thread is getting long. I just ripped a DVD using the xoom setting . Video and sound quality look good however noticed I cannot change the volume within movie. No matter what I do to change the systems volume I get a loud playback on both xooms speaker and headphones. Any suggestions? Thank you for your help!
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Quite a few people with Xooms have experienced similar issues. Some people mentioned an app was causing this somehow and uninstalled it, others just turned the Xoom off and back on, and the volume was working properly again.
[Xoom General] jland22:
Thanks for the quick response. It was DSL manager fixed when I uninstalled and rebooted.

One other question for you : I ripped my second DVD using the same default xoom profile and the second movie is not full screen more like a widescreen in the middleportion of xoom. Do you know why this could be? If it is because the DVD format is widescreen as opposed to full is there a reccomendation for resolution?

With your recent update is there a preferred preset you reccomend for DVDs ?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
You are welcome, glad it fixed your issue.

Based on your description, it appears that the movie isn't cropped. Especially older wide-screen movies have black borders as part of the video, and if these are not removed during conversion, video players will treat them as part of the actual video, preventing the actual video portion to scale properly. Normally DVD Catalyst removes these borders automatically. Did you change any settings in Global Settings > Borders? The default setting there should be "Remove from file" which just cuts off those black borders if they are there.

As for settings for DVDs, use the default Xoom profile. The quality settings in that profile are great for DVDs and non-HD sized content. If you actually use HD sources (720/1080 MKV's) the HQ profiles are better, but using those for DVDs will not get you much of a difference in quality, just larger files.
[Xoom General] jland22:
No I didn't change any settings and the DVD was fairly new (deathly hallows HP). Checked the setting it is set to remove black bars from file. Not sure what happened.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
Hm, maybe because the movie is so dark, the 5 scan points dvdcat uses to determine the borders isn't enough, however, since it is a brand new movie, I doubt if it actually has any borders at all. A lot of recent high-profile movies don't have them anymore.

After scanning, tap the preview button and see if it shows black borders in there. If it does have them, you can increase the amount of scan points in Global Settings > Borders (underneath the auto-crop options, above the rotate ones) Changing it from 5 to 6 or 7 should produce better results.
[Xoom General] jland22:
Ill check it out thanks. I did notice the resolution was converted to 832 x 352 for the video when the first movie was closer to DVD resolution. Does this seem low to you?
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
The official DVD standard uses 720x480 as the actual resolution. With the aspect ratio applied, this ends up a bit larger.

With older wide-screen movies, black padding is added to make the files match the DVD standard (newer ones just use the aspect ratio to make them widescreen)

In your case, the DVD actually has black borders, which are removed by dvd catalyst by default, so you end up with just the video portion at the original resolution.

Have a look at chapter 10 in the user guide of dvdcat, or look at the full-screen article in the latest news section on my website.
[Xoom General] jlewis11:
I havent even tried to put movies up until now because I had seen so many complaints about it...and I didnt want to get irritated.... I downloaded this DVD CAT last night and put a few Movies on my Xoom using Xoom Fast and XoomHQ2 settings and they look pretty good...more than decent for a 10 inch screen IMO...Avatar isnt that bright...but I just blame that on the screen for now(or the fact that it wasnt a 1080p copy)... I also downloaded MOBO player...and every movie has played fine with no skips or stutters...

I have had no issues with the Xoom as of yet because I read first and know what to expect....this saves from any disappointments imo. It's a great device...
[Xoom General] jland22:
For the people who are ripping dvd's and using the xoom profile do you have your borders set to default at remove from file only?

Are you getting the widescreen look at this setting or an almost full picture?

I am contemplating using the partially remove from device setting or completely remove from device setting if that is what people are doing and liking. Based on the manual by doing this you cut out large portions of the video or quality is impacted.

The defualt remove from file setting (newer dvds) is playing these files in a widescreen format only utulizing about half the screen.
[Xoom General] dvdcatalyst:
I run dvdcat using the default "remove from file" (which is why it is basically set as default) because I don't like to have portions of the video cut off to make it full-screen. It originates back to the square-screen devices like the original iPod Video (320x240), where in some cases you end up with more than half of the movie being cut-off to make the movie full-screen, but of course on the other end you still end up with black borders during video playback, and in the case of the iPod, the movie ends up filling only 1/3rd of the screen.

The "partially remove" setting compensates for this by splitting the portion that needs to be removed to make your movies full-screen in half, so you still lose some of your video, and you still have some black borders, but its half of what you would normally end up with using one of the other 2 settings.

Unfortunately, its a compromise you have to decide for yourself. For me, I rather have the full-width of the movie, and don't worry too much about the black borders, but other people rather make full use of the screen and don't care much about the sides of the movie (most of the action is usually in the middle anyway)

The same goes for quality options, while it is possible to create ultra-high quality video files that will play on the Xoom (I did Train your Dragon from bluray (needs dvdcat beta and anydvd hd for it to work) using xoom hq2 1080, and ended up with a 6.2GB video file that plays amazingly on my Xoom, but doing that for all my movies would let me store maybe 5 movies total. If I do the same movie using Xoom HQ1 at 720p, I end up with a 2GB file, or 15 movies, at virtually the same playback quality. Its all personal choice.

I would suggest to just try a few different options, and see what works best for you.